Team Building
by Maegfen
Summary: Or, the story where everyone decides to play Mario Kart at Rigsby's house. Silly team fic based off a tumblr prompt. Hints of Jisbon and Rigspelt if you look hard enough...


**Author's note:** This silly little fic was inspired by seewhatsinyourheart's tumblr request which went as follows: _Can someone please write a fic where the team go to Rigsby's for a take out night and they play wii Mario kart; Jane and Lisbon Vs. Grace and Rigsby. Cho's just his usual 'stands by and watches with secret amusement'. IT WOULD BE EPIC._

**Warnings:** No real warnings, although hints of Jane/ Lisbon and Van Pelt/ Rigsby throughout. _  
_

A bit different from my usual fare, but it combined my love of video games and The Mentalist so how could I resist! Hope you all enjoy!

* * *

The incessant knocking at the door woke Rigsby from his late afternoon nap. He shifted himself carefully from the couch and frowned at the door, wondering who would be visiting him. He stood carefully, grabbing the crutches from the table and hobbled over to answer the door. He'd been having a rather pleasant dream involving him, Grace and a nurse's uniform and he was a bit annoyed that he'd been disturbed. Sure, it sucked being on medical leave for a week, but it did mean he managed to catch up on some rest and daydreams.

Shifting his weight to his good leg, and balancing precariously on the crutches, he looked carefully through the peephole of his house. Spotting the familiar faces of the team, he opened the door in confusion.

"Uh, hey guys. What are you all doing here?" he said by way of greeting, before noticing that Grace, Lisbon and Jane were carrying what looked like take-away bags and boxes.

"Rigsby!" Jane said, smiling as he stood next to Lisbon on the steps. "We wrapped up the Hampson case this afternoon and we were going out for closed case pizza but we realised it wouldn't be the same without our walking wounded! So we brought food, beer and our good selves to keep you entertained."

Rigsby looked suspicious, glancing at Cho as he leant against the wall, arms folded against his chest.

"Don't look at me," he said, pointing at Jane, "it was his idea."

Rigsby looked at Grace, who nodded and shrugged. Well. That was both strange and kind of Jane. He wondered what the consultant was up to.

He ushered them all in, catching a whiff of the food they'd brought. It smelt like a combination of pizza, Thai and possibly some Chinese. Excellent. He was starving.

"Uh, sorry about the mess, I've been lounging around today." He looked a bit embarrassed at the slight disarray of the room, but everyone just shrugged and he smiled as Grace and Lisbon just shifted a couple of piles of magazines that were scattered over his coffee table to make way for the food.

Jane had wandered straight through to the kitchen and had reappeared with several plates moments later. Which was weird, because Jane had never been to his house before, so Rigsby wasn't entirely sure how he'd worked out where he'd kept his stuff so quickly. Still, Jane was Jane, the man defied explanation sometimes.

Everyone quickly made themselves comfortable in the living room; Rigsby and Grace taking up the couch, Cho taking one chair and Jane another. Lisbon had taken a seat on the floor in front of Jane, leaning against the consultants legs, while stretching her own out in front of her. Rigsby looked at them carefully, but decided not to comment. Whatever was going on between the two of them was their own business. Plus, he was more concerned about what Grace was doing. Currently, she was picking at a slice of pizza, but, when she noticed him looking, she beamed at him. He grinned right back. He'd missed her over the last couple of days. The real her anyway; he'd become pretty friendly with his dream version of Grace over the last 48 hours. He coughed, worried that someone would pick up on less than innocent thoughts (namely, Jane) and turned his attention to the food that was laid out in front of him.

All of them sat around comfortably, grabbing slices of pizza, plates of noodles and generally having a good catch-up. Cho passed around some beers to everyone and the mood was pretty jovial. Rigsby had been out of the office for a few days with his ankle strapped up, so he'd missed out on the final parts of the investigation. The others filled him in as they all ate, and soon everyone had finished eating and were looking around for something else to keep them all entertained.

It was Jane, typically, who spotted the Wii tucked underneath the large tv.

"What's that?" Jane pointed with his half empty beer bottle and leaning over slightly, almost resting his arm on Lisbon's head.

"What's what?" Rigsby was confused and he tried to figure out what Jane was looking at.

"That white thing under the tv?"

"Oh," Lisbon started, looking up at Rigsby, "that's a Wii right?"

Still confused, Rigsby nodded, while Jane, Cho and Grace just looked at the Lisbon, startled expressions on their faces.

"What?" She asked sharing Rigsby's perplexed expression. "I have a niece remember. She's into all these computer gamey type things."

"Computer gamey type things? Your technical knowledge knows no bounds Lisbon…ouch!"

Jane flinched as Lisbon caught his leg with the back of her hand, seemingly forgetting that the others were even in the room. _Just ignore them, _Rigsby thought to himself, _don't go there, it's not worth it_.

"Ooh," Grace muttering excitedly, turning to face him, "can we play on it?"

"Uh, sure. I mean, I don't have many games really, and I've only got 4 controllers, but I guess we could if everyone wants..."

"What you got?"

Rigsby looked over at Cho, who was nursing his second beer and eyeing up the last slice of pepperoni pizza.

"Uh, hold on, let me go have a look." He went to stand up, before remembering that his ankle was strapped up. "Grace, could you?"

Grace nodded and wandered over to the side of the tv, where a stack of white cases were piled rather haphazardly. She picked them up and wandered back to the couch, handing the pile to Rigsby, who smiled and uttered a soft "thank you."

"Come on man, we haven't got all night," Cho muttered, and Rigsby could have sworn he'd rolled his eyes.

"Oh, yeah, right," Rigsby looked at the boxes in his lap. "I've got Mario Kart, some Zelda game, uh, Lego, um, Lego Batman, Wii Sports and this year's Madden and WWE. That's it. Sorry."

He looked up at everyone apologetically, but nobody seemed to mind.

"Any we can all play together?" Grace asked.

"Only Mario Kart really. Sorry. I tend to play with myself a lot." He froze suddenly and coughed, realising the obvious innuendo, "I uh, mean I normally play the Wii by myself. Because I live on my own. Obviously."

He could see Grace blushing next to him and Jane holding back a laugh, although he stopped quickly when Lisbon turned and glared at him, and Rigsby watched as the consultant raised his hands in a typical 'who me?' gesture.

So, ignoring his abject humiliation in front of the others, and more importantly, Grace, Rigsby directed Cho with instructions on how to set up the console, and watched as his partner handed everyone else a controller.

"You not playing man?"

"Nah," Cho answered, settling back into his chair, "I'll watch. I'm more an Xbox man."

Rigsby eyed him carefully, but quickly turned his attention back to the tv.

"Right, so, we can do this a couple of ways. We can race every man… or woman," he hurried, noticing Lisbon's sly glare, "for him or herself. Or we could play in pairs."

"Oh, pairs sounds fun!" Grace said, and Rigsby was surprised at her obvious enthusiasm. He really didn't think Grace would be into video games. Still, it was just something else to add to his list of 'Reasons why Wayne Rigsby loves Grace Van Pelt.'

"Yeah, everything's more fun with two people," Jane said, and received another smack from Lisbon as a reward. "Ouch! Will you quit hitting me woman!"

Lisbon didn't reply, just smirked and looked up at the screen before she spoke.

"I'm up for pairs. What do you say, Rigsby, you and Van Pelt against me and the pain in the ass here?"

"Hey," came Jane's affronted reply, but judging by the grin on his face, Rigsby figured that he didn't actually mind the teasing.

A few minutes later, following a brief explanation about how the game worked and what buttons needed pressing on the controller, everyone was ready to select their characters.

Jane picked Mario, stating that it was the only character he even vaguely recognised. Lisbon proceeded to pick Peach, much to the amusement of Rigsby. He wondered if the two of them had realised that they'd selected the only real 'couple' in the game.

Rigsby watched as Jane laughed and leaned over to mutter something in the Boss' ear. He couldn't make out what it was, but it had something to do with 'pink dresses.' He ignored them and focused on picking his own character… hmm, Bowser or Yoshi, Bowser or Yoshi. Yoshi it was; he had a soft spot for the green dinosaur.

"Typical," he heard Cho mutter from beside him and Rigsby turned to glare at his best friend.

"What do you mean by that?"

"Yoshi is such an awful character."

"Take that back! He's a dinosaur!"

"Yeah, a t-rex wanna be!"

"Dude, I am not having this argument with you again. It's my house, I can pick whatever character I like."

"Hope he drives better than he picks things up. I'm surprised he can even reach the steering wheel."

Rigsby didn't reply, just glared at Cho and turned his attention back to the selection screen. Grace had finally picked her character: Toad. He turned and looked at her.

"A mushroom? Really?"

Grace shrugged, smirking at him.

"What? He looks cute. Anyway, that's no way to talk to your team mate. If you're not careful I'll make you go with Jane instead."

Rigsby glanced over at Jane, who seemed to be enthusiastically practising turning the controller like a steering wheel. Rigsby noticed the controller was the wrong way round. Heh, Lisbon was doomed, victory would be theirs!

"Ugh, no thanks. Sorry Grace." He smiled at her, and she returned the gesture.

They quickly selected a track and Rigsby double checked that everyone was ready before he confirmed their choice.

"Now remember," he said to everyone, "don't forget to pick up the weapons on the track as well, they'll come in handy if you want to win."

Everyone nodded.

"Right, we'll complete a few tracks and add up the total points for each pair. Pair with most points wins, agreed?" Rigsby looked around at his fellow competitors, feeling excited about the upcoming races. Really, it was his game, he was sure to wipe the floor with them all. Hopefully, Grace would be able to do well and they'd beat Jane and the Boss.

"Sounds good," Lisbon said, while Jane and Grace just nodded. Rigsby turned to Cho.

"You wanna keep score man?"

"Sure." Cho said, not taking his eyes off the screen and taking another sip of his beer.

"Right, let's race!" Rigsby said enthusiastically, before looking around at everyone. "Sorry, bit too excited there."

The countdown started and, before they knew it, the first race had begun. After a few tense minutes, Rigsby won with ease, with Lisbon coming in a surprising second and Grace and Jane finishing third and fourth respectively. Jane, especially, had been about a lap behind everyone, although he quickly blamed it on the fact that his controller didn't seem to work when he pressed the buttons. He quickly shut up when Lisbon told him he was an idiot because he was holding it upside down.

The races continued, and the mood in the house became even more excitable as the members of the team began utilising the weapons they picked up and focused more on working as a team. There were many shouts of 'No, watch out; bomb' or 'just drop the damn banana Jane,' or 'who used that oil, I can't see a thing!' and on one particular occasion 'Lisbon, I'm the guy in red right?'

Rigsby soon realised that everyone's driving in-game was similar to their real life attitudes. Jane, for example, just accelerated harshly, went too quick, broke late at the corners and barely kept his kart on the road. Lisbon, on the other hand, was careful, found the perfect driving line quickly and was cautious when manoeuvring around the various turns.

Grace was particularly funny to watch. She'd speed down the straights, panic at the corners and ended up off the track more often than not. Still, Rigsby's in-depth knowledge of each track meant that Grace's inability to keep the car on the road meant that the two 'teams' were pretty evenly matched.

Eventually, the competition came down to the last race. The two teams were close in terms of points, Cho informing them that Jane and the Boss were 10 points behind Rigsby and Grace, mainly due to Lisbon's ability to use the weapons in the game as well as she did at work. Jane, who was unfortunately proving to be a quick learner, had even managed to sneak a couple of victories from under Rigsby's nose, which meant that the younger agent was out for revenge. He was king of Mario Kart, not Jane. Grace was doing well too, and Rigsby was happy to say that she was able to give him and Jane a run for their money.

The way the points stood meant that Rigsby and Grace had to secure a 1, 2 finish, which was going to be difficult but not impossible.

The atmosphere was tense as the countdown started, everyone leaning forward slightly to concentrate on their own part of the screen. Rigsby was momentarily distracted by Grace's tongue poking out of her mouth as she focused on the screen, but he quickly shook his head and prepared to race.

It was a close run thing, with the four of them trading places throughout the 3 laps. Jane led going into the last lap, helped by the fact that Lisbon had taken out Rigsby with a well-placed banana at the end of the final straight. Still, Rigsby took revenge on the Boss with a green shell and he turned his attention to Jane. He had one shell left and did well not to be distracted by Grace's shout when Lisbon, rather carelessly, managed to slip off the edge of the track.

It all came down to a one on one contest between the two men, and Rigsby noticed Jane glancing over frequently in his direction, as if the usually calm consultant was nervous. He had good reason to be; they all knew that Lisbon wasn't a particularly good loser, and Jane would certainly be blamed if they didn't win. There were only a couple of corners left, and Rigsby knew he only had one shot at this. A quick glance at the map showed that Grace was close behind him, meaning that if he could just get Jane out of the way then their improbable 1, 2 finish was definitely achievable. He got the back of Jane's kart in his sights… aimed… fired!

The shell seemed to go in slow motion, and everyone, including Cho, leant forward to see whether it would hit its target or not. Rigsby held his breath, watching the little green object fly across the road. Jane looked over in panic, as if unsure what to do, and was then, much to Rigsby's amusement, completely distracted by Lisbon's shout of 'move across the track you idiot!'

Jane flailed with the controller, but his usual sharp reflexes failed him for once in his life and the consultant groaned loudly as the shell hit the back of his kart and knocked him into the air. Rigsby let out a loud 'WOOP!" as he and Grace both sped by and crossed the line, with Lisbon finishing dangerously close behind in third.

There was silence in the room for a few seconds, before all hell broke loose. Rigsby grabbed Grace and hugged her, the two of the celebrating their victory. Rigsby glanced over at their opponents and almost laughed at Lisbon, who appeared to be sulking, and Jane, who appeared to be clutching his leg in pain. Really, Rigsby thought, the two of them were worse than children. Still, that didn't stop him and Grace celebrating. He looked over at Cho, who was just staring at the four of them, arms folded across his chest, observing their antics. Rigsby thought he saw his partner roll his eyes, but ignored it.

"Come on man," Rigsby eventually said, looking over at Cho, "you need to do the results officially."

"Ok," Cho said, looking at everyone. "You and Van Pelt won, Jane and the Boss lost."

"Hey now," Jane said, looking insulted, "Be reasonable here Cho. Lisbon and I didn't lose, we came a respectable second."

"Did you come first?"

"No, but…"

"Then you lost. Take it like a man."

Rigsby laughed at Jane who folded his arms, imitating Lisbon, and appeared to sulk as well. He and the Boss were pretty well suited when it came down to it, Rigsby thought.

It seemed that that was the right moment to call it a night, and Rigsby, still grinning at his and Grace's victory, concentrated on turning off the console while everyone else threw away the rubbish and quickly washed the dishes.

Five minutes later they were all stood at the door wishing each other a good night.

"Thanks for tonight Rigs," Lisbon said, wrapping herself up in her coat. "I think we all had a lot of fun."

"Yeah," Jane said. "I'm thinking we need to do this again sometime right everyone? It's good to do something different once in a while."

There were nods all round, but Rigsby knew Jane's true intentions.

"You just want the opportunity to beat me. Isn't going to happen!"

Jane looked at him, and Rigsby instantly recognised the look that signified that Jane was up to something.

"We'll see, we'll see."

Rigsby laughed and everyone began to make a move towards their respective cars. Jane and Lisbon moved off together, starting up a conversation as soon as they left the door. If he didn't know better, he could have sworn that Jane had his arm around Lisbon's shoulder as headed towards the familiar Citroen. _Nah, couldn't be_, Rigsby thought, _must be imagining things_. It was pretty dark outside after all.

Cho wandered off after Jane and Lisbon, giving a slight wave as he went, while Grace lingered slightly at the door.

Rigsby turned to look at Grace, who seemed to be shuffling her feet slightly, as if she was nervous.

"You ok?" he asked.

"Huh? Yeah I'm fine."

"Sure?"

"Oh yeah, I'm great. Thanks for putting up with us all night Wayne. I'm guessing you're pretty tired now." She looked down at his leg, the strapping clear in the light his house.

He shrugged slightly, and then almost lost his balance on his crutches. Grace lent forward and held his arm to keep him steady.

"Thanks," he muttered, "still getting used to these things."

"S'ok," she smiled at him and Rigsby thought that the moonlight reflecting off her hair made her look even more beautiful than usual.

They stood awkwardly at the door, and Rigsby wished he could come up with something smart or witty so they could continue their conversation.

"So," Grace eventually said, suddenly looking anywhere but at him, "the Boss gave us tomorrow off. You know, because we solved the case today."

"Ah cool. You going to do anything interesting."

Grace rolled her eyes and Rigsby looked at her in confusion.

"Well, I was wondering if maybe I could stop round here. Maybe keep you company for a bit?"

"Really?"

Grace nodded and smiled shyly at him.

"Yeah, that'd be great! I'd love that."

"Excellent, I can bring some lunch or some snacks if you want? And then maybe we can play some other games. Maybe ones designed for two players?"

He looked at her, half shocked, half confused.

"Uh, games on the Wii right?"

She smirked, then laughed at his frown.

"To start off with maybe …"

And with that, she leant up, kissed his cheek quickly and dashed off down the stairs towards her car, her call of 'see you tomorrow' drifting back to him through the cool night air.

Oh man, he was totally doomed. He shut the door, and went to get himself ready for bed, convinced that there was no way he was getting any more sleep that night.


End file.
